Business Matters

The creative possibilities of hemp’s textile revival

Hemp fashion from College of Business apparel design seniors Lucas Mazurik, Jack White, Zoë Reece and Jackson Flint have been accepted into the exhibition, “Hemp Impressions: Sustainable Fiber and Fashion Reimagined,” at Louisiana State University with their department of textiles, apparel design and merchandising.

The exhibition, organized by OSU alumna Dr. Casey Stannard ’14, an associate professor at LSU, focuses on hemp as an important sustainable fabric and the need to reintroduce hemp as a textile for designers. Stannard received her Ph.D. from OSU in Design and Human Environment.

Stannard’s exhibition highlights the fact that hemp was the first textile fiber to be cultivated by humans. When its production was outlawed in the United States for about 50 years, many people became unfamiliar with the aesthetics and creative potential of hemp fiber and textiles. Banned in the 1970s, only the Farm Bill of 2018 permitted farmers to start growing hemp domestically. The exhibition hopes to ignite creative interest in the textile.

Taking creativity to heart, Mazurik, White and Reece are displaying mülch — an earthy outdoor brand inspired by the garden and seeking to provide an alternative to ubiquitous competition/sports apparel. The clothing is designed to connect with nature and be from nature: hemp and cotton blended fabric and marigold and logwood dyes.

The team specifically focused on garments made for gardeners that would feel like part of the garden with natural fibers and dyes from plants the gardener might even be growing.

“We always knew that we wanted to create a collection with sustainability in mind,” Reece said. “Our goal for the collection was to influence the way people interact with the outdoors and to provide a segment of outdoor wear that does not surround athletic performance. We felt like we couldn’t send that message to people without doing our own part to protect the very environment we were encouraging people to experience.”

A signature item of mülch is the gardening skirt, an adjustable full-length skirt that provides protection when farmers are on their knees, can be cinched up for ease of walking, and includes generous pockets for tools or fresh produce.

Flint, whose submission is Flow Pants, took an artistic approach, wanting to use hemp fabric to create a wearable piece of art. Flow Pants are patterned on a pair of Flint’s jeans, and designed in tribute to his love for abstract art.

“Right now, art within fashion aligns right in the middle of my portfolio,” he said. “My outfits for my senior collection are a mix of both art and functionality. I have so many ideas for functional garments, but I believe that sometimes it can be overwhelming with all the extra pockets or drawstrings, so I like dedicating a garment to being just art.”

Prototyping Flow Pants with muslin to perfect the curved layers of patches, his final product is 50% hemp, 50% cotton blend fabric, finished with hand-cranked stitches from his trusty sewing machine.

“Even when you don’t have all of the tools, if you have a passion for something, you will make it work. It taught me a lot about determination and ambition.” — Jackson Flint

The reason: students had to prepare for a late summer submission deadline. Flint had already organized two summer jobs for a plus-80-hour work week, but knew he could not pass up this opportunity. His window of time for the needed focus and intentionality coincided with one of the worst windstorms in Montana’s history that took out the electricity for days.

Despite the symbolism of completing his art for a sustainable fashion exhibition by hand, Flint is not proposing this route as the future of fashion. “It is definitely sustainable in the way of using less electricity, but it was a very lengthy process. I think this situation represents the fact that you can do anything you put your mind to. Even when you don’t have all of the tools, if you have a passion for something, you will make it work. It taught me a lot about determination and ambition.”

Flow Pants not only made it into the exhibition, but earned Flint public acclaim for the first time. “After posting them on my Instagram, I had plenty of people asking if I could make them a pair,” he said. “No one has ever asked me to make them custom pieces. While I don’t really have the time to make some at the moment, the feeling I got from people wanting them was awesome!”

Colleen Pokorny, Ph.D., assistant professor of apparel design at the College of Business, is equally enthused. “I am so proud of our students,” she said. “Not only from a design standpoint for their creativity, but also for digging in with research, for learning how to communicate their design process, and successfully presenting their concepts.”

Pokorny along with apparel design instructor Marianne Dickson advised the students for their exhibition designs, but they embrace the use of hemp as a design textile for all students, notably due to the collaboration with the OSU Global Hemp Innovation Center (GHIC). The hemp center provides hemp fabric for the students as well as other research initiatives for the design program.

For example, Dickson works extensively with hemp fabric to explore sustainable, organic dyes, inviting our students from the OSU chapter of the American Association of Textile Chemists and Colorists Club to experiment with the natural dyes.

And Brigitte Cluver, Ph.D., instructor and faculty advisor to the AATCC club, researched consumer perceptions of hemp fabric with merchandising and apparel design students with GHIC-supplied materials, finding a positive halo effect when participants knew they were handling hemp textiles. When the fabric was identified as hemp cloth, the participants rated it as having a more pleasing texture and being of higher quality, more comfortable to wear, more durable, and more environmentally friendly. 

“Hemp is one of the most sustainable fibers to cultivate, and the possibilities of this re-emerging material are so exciting for our priorities on pursuing sustainable fashion,” Pokorny said. “We are so lucky to be able to expose our students to these new materials, and especially thankful for opportunity to be strong collaborators with OSU’s Global Hemp Innovation Center.”

OSU College of Business student work accepted

• mülch by Lucas Mazurik, Jack White, & Zoë Reece. Advised by Colleen Pokorny & Marianne Dickson
• Flow Pants by Jackson Flint. Advised by Colleen Pokorny & Marianne Dickson

“Hemp Impressions: Sustainable Fiber and Fashion Reimagined” dates and locations 

• Louisiana State University Human Ecology Building, October 1-21, 2024.
• Louisiana Old State Capitol Building, November 8-10, 2024.